As Brooklyn Gentrifies, Some Neighborhoods Are Being Left Behind

Brownsville has not experienced the renaissance seen in many other parts of the borough.Credit
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

For much of the past century, Brooklyn was the Rodney Dangerfield of boroughs, known for its blue-collar style, for its funny accent and, of course, for getting no respect.

Then came the brownstone homesteaders and the bohemian pioneers. They turned lunch-bucket warrens in Park Slope, Dumbo and Williamsburg into glamorous destinations, drawing a flood of well-schooled young men and women who were attracted by quaint yet affordable homes, outdoor cafes, bicycle lanes and the neighborhoods’ sometimes self-parodying artisanal, sustainable and locavore ethos.

Brooklyn somehow, against all odds, became an internationally recognized icon of cool.

The sudden physical and cultural transformation has been endlessly debated. Yet to many longtime residents in some of the borough’s unaffected corners — in the rough-edged and timeless Brooklyn that has endured in places like Gerritsen Beach, Marine Park, Sheepshead Bay, Brownsville and East New York — the renaissance is still being watched with amusement, nervousness and even dismay.

In these neighborhoods, rarely mentioned in the city’s tourist literature, some shrug off the re-branding of their home borough as so much tinsel or distant thunder having little to do with their lives, while others worry about being forgotten altogether. Still others express outright resentment that they have not enjoyed the fruits of Brooklyn’s more modish reputation. Shuttered factories in places like Dumbo remind them of lost jobs rather than the expensive lofts that beckon from glossy advertisements.

“I’m glad Brooklyn is making a name for itself and it’s coming up, but if it’s coming up, it should be spread out,” said Joycelyn Maynard, who runs the Stone Avenue Library, a nearly 100-year-old branch in Brownsville, an area struggling with unemployment, foreclosed homes, troubled schools and gang shootings. “I think they pay more attention to parts of Brooklyn that are gentrified.”

“Even in certain parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant you find a cafe table to sit out in the sun,” Ms. Maynard added. “Here, how can you have a cafe where people eat in the sun if they’re concerned about gangs shooting each other?”

In middle-class enclaves like Gerritsen Beach — home to generations of police officers, firefighters and post office workers, where weekends are often for worship and backyard barbecues — fashionable Brooklyn spots like Park Slope or Boerum Hill might as well be a foreign country.

“I enjoy happening places and I would enjoy the restaurants, and I’m glad it’s getting to be on the map,” said Jennifer Avena, whose family roots in Gerritsen Beach stretch decades. “But keep it there.”

The city’s most populous borough remains stunningly diverse. Neighborhoods like Red Hook and Bedford-Stuyvesant mix lives side by side, though not always comfortably. But a look at some of the typical signs of gentrification, income and education shows that sections of the borough are increasingly on divergent tracks.

In the community district that embraces Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, the proportion of households earning over $100,000 rose to 43 percent in 2010 from 28 percent in 1990. In Brownsville and Ocean Hill, the number stayed flat, around 9 percent, while those earning under $25,000 rose to 46 percent from 43 percent, according to a study of household income by Susan Weber-Stoger, a Queens College sociology research associate.

In Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the proportion of residents holding graduate degrees quadrupled to 12 percent; in East New York and Starrett City, it remained 4 percent.

Assemblyman Hakeem S. Jeffries, who recently won the Democratic primary for a Congressional seat that serves gentrifying Fort Greene and Prospect Heights as well as Brownsville and East New York, said: “The poorer neighborhoods were devastated by the collapse of the economy and have not meaningfully recovered.”

“The sidewalk cafes are great,” he said, “but we need a blueprint for employment and housing opportunities that are desperately needed in parts of Brownsville and East New York. We should continue to promote Brooklyn as a trendy destination but cannot forget the bread-and-butter economic issues that many distressed Brooklynites continue to deal with each day.”

Some of the same sentiment can be heard as well in the more affluent traditional enclaves, where there is a feeling that city officials may not respond as swiftly to routine complaints about municipal services. Greg Borruso, president of the Marine Park Civic Association, said the residents of his south shore neighborhood “are constantly reminding elected officials we’re here, we’re a voting area, we take care of our homes and of each other, and we want to make sure you don’t forget us.”

“What happens when you’re not in the paper a lot and on TV, you’re kind of forgotten,” he said, “so when we ask for something we don’t always get the same response.”

In Sunset Park, a neighborhood bustling with Chinese and Mexican immigrants, there has been bitterness that the city has not until this year heeded complaints that four-day-a-week street cleaning forces car owners to endlessly circle blocks looking for parking spaces. By contrast, the more politically muscular residents of southern Park Slope next door have had two-day-a-week street cleaning for many years.

Complaints about being overlooked are echoed in neighborhoods like Brownsville. Al Mathieu, 38, who has operated the Black Success Unisex barbershop for 15 years, says his neighborhood is being ignored by the city and developers. “They’re putting money in those neighborhoods, but not in this one,” he said. “There’s very little private development.”

Even when residents who feel slighted welcome the resurrection of shopworn neighborhoods like Williamsburg into magnets for writers, celebrities and top chefs, the culture and value system there sometimes seem as foreign as the high-concept farm-to-table offerings at the Brooklyn Sandwich Society. They cited the idea of boycotting products as a political protest, a proposal that was heatedly debated by Park Slope’s food cooperative in regard to Israeli foods.

“You’d never see anything like that here,” said George R. Broadhead, head of the property owners association of Gerritsen Beach, on Brooklyn’s south shore.

Ms. Avena, 35, said the greater availability of organic vegetables or sustainable, grass-fed beef in a place like Park Slope holds no appeal. “If they think it’s healthy, it’s fine with me,” she said. “But it’s not for me.”

In Marine Park, Mr. Borruso, a hardware merchant, spurns the gourmet restaurants on Smith Street for a dinner out at Michael’s Restaurant, a 40-year-old spot in his seaside neighborhood, which has reliable food and, just as important, a place to park.

“Did you ever try to find a parking spot in Brooklyn Heights or Park Slope?” he said.

Theresa Scavo, chairwoman of Community Board 15, which includes Homecrest, Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach and Gerritsen Beach, is proud of a polyglot domain that is peopled with Irish- and Italian-Americans, Syrian Jews, thriving Soviet immigrants and a growing number of Asian newcomers. Residents have adopted quite traditional lifestyles, preferring houses and apartment buildings with manicured lawns to reimagined 19th-century row houses.

“Here, everything remains the same,” Ms. Scavo said. “They don’t want Trader Joe’s. They don’t want sidewalks crowded with cafes. They want a residential, suburban lifestyle. We’re not looking for innovative ways to do things. I have a hard time setting up a DVR.”

Most residents, Ms. Scavo said, shrug off Brooklyn’s glossy new neighborhoods and are not interested in emulating them.

“When people hear about the new Brooklyn, they say let them have it,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on July 9, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: As Brooklyn Gentrifies, Some Neighborhoods Are Being Left Behind. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe